Mineral Oil is a highly controversial product in the makeup industry. There are many horror stories on how it's derived from petroleum/crude oil and in other words the absolute shit for skin. The other camp believes that mineral oil does no harm to the skin, and any moisturizing product that does not contain mineral oil is inferior to one that does.
The lovely skincare god Caroline Hirons is in the first camp - read here. I am a reddit/skincareaddiction addict and the lovely people over there highly advocate mineral oil. I of course, urge you to do your own research before popping anything on your face.
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To briefly breakdown mineral oil:
1) it is an inert oil and rates 0 on the comedogenic scale. This means that mineral oil should not clog your pores or cause acne. Of course, there will be people who react badly to it despite such ratings, so as always recommended - patch test.
2) It is an occlusive oil. Occlusive oils are meant to form a protective layer over the skin, hence it is very different from other oils such as jojoba/grapeseed/passionfruit/argan etc. which are high in fatty acids that are absorbed by the skin. So yes, in this sense, the lack of fatty acids render mineral oil an oil with NO BENEFITS. It does however, act as a sealing layer. So if used over other "beneficial oils", it helps the skin to retain all da good stuff.
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Having stalked the skincareaddiction posts for a long while, it seems that the best usage of mineral oil is for the removal of makeup and oil-cleansing. These 2 concepts are highly popular in the Asian market - the base of Shu Uemura's cleansing oil is in fact, yes you got it - mineral oil! Of course, the price difference in a bottle of baby oil ($3-4) compared to that of a Shu Uemura Oil ($55 for 150ml) is phenomenal. If you don't mind having to wash the mineral oil off with a foaming wash, then pure mineral oil is actually a fantastic and cheap alternative to taking off makeup.
What prompted me to write this post though, was that I recently added mineral oil as the last step to my routine and I saw phenomenal improvement after just one night. I'm no stranger to face oils either, I've tried the Clarins Blue Lotus Face Oil, Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Concentrate, Mad Hippie Antioxidant Oil (argan oil base), Tamanu Oil, Apricot Kernel Oil and none of them came close to repairing my very damaged scaly forehead skin.
I've also tried many of the traditional moisturizers for sensitive skins such as Cerave PM Lotion, Cerave in a tub, QV Cream, Physiogel. Gel based moisturizers like the Laneige Sleeping Mask, Hada Labo Perfect Gel. Nothing could make a dent to my dehydrated forehead.
That's how I landed at my fuck it routine of using a sheet mask and sealing with a moisturizer/one of the "beneficial oils". It was improving slightly, then when I decided to add on mineral oil as the final step (after using it as a cleanser and realizing that my skin doesn't react adversely to it), BAM! Instant improvement. I've been using this routine for a week now, and everyday, I wake up to a less scaly forehead and I am pretty much worshipping baby oil right now.
So ladies, friends, don't discard baby oil immediately for being cheap and useless. It could pretty much be the best thing that happens to you. and pretty damn cheap too.
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P.S. If you are sensitive to fragrance, try to look for baby oil without fragrance. Also, some baby oils/mineral oils contain tocopherol (vit e) which some people don't react to. Check the ingredients!
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